Reactionless Drive: Difference between revisions
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* The Impeller Drive of the ''[[Honor Harrington|Honorverse]]'' generates a pair of bands of extremely high gravitational distortion that allow a ship to go forward in a method that is likened to surfing. Top speed for unmanned items (such as missiles) is in excess of 99% of lightspeed under the right conditions. Manned vessels are generally restricted to 0.8c for military vessels and 0.6c for commercial, but that's a function of particle shielding not the drive. The real limiting factor is how great an acceleration that your crew can withstand, something that is increased by [[Inertial Dampening|inertial compensators]].
* [[Isaac Asimov]] featured such a drive ''in The Gods Themselves''. It worked through the momentum being shunted into another dimension.
* The eponymous technology in [https://web.archive.org/web/20150517033633/http://worldebookfair.org/eBooks/Baen_Library_Collection/038075357X.pdf Anti-Grav Unlimited] are rods that act like "gravity magnets". Through experimentation, he not only manages to create a perpetual motion engine for his van (by welding two rods perpendicular to each other so that they're always being pulled up on one side and down the other), but also manages to rig rods such that he can make the van fly.
* In ''Fleeing Earth'' (''Terre en fuite'') by François Bordes (AKA Francis Carsac), the second civilization of humanity (after we mostly die out in another Ice Age) is [[Alien Invasion|conquered by aliens]]. When the aliens are defeated using a genetically-engineered virus, they leave behind some of their technology, including their primary means of propulsion in space called "space magnets". Apparently, there are certain energy lines between nearby stars that can be used for space travel by using these "space magnets" to allow a ship to be "pulled" towards a specific star. A ship with a "space magnet" can accelerate to close to 80% of the speed of light. Ships can also maneuver with these drives similar to how sailing ships can be still pushed by the wind even going in a perpendicular direction. There are limitations, however. It is discovered that there is a barrier of sorts at midpoint between the two stars that prevents a ship with a "space magnet" from moving farther (why the drive can't simply be shut off for the time being is not explained). Exceptions include a massive object traveling at very high speeds. This comes into play when the Sun is about to explode, forcing humans to build giant "space magnets" that allow them to move ''planets'', such as Earth and Venus.
* In ''[[Tom Swift]] and the Race to the Moon'', the plucky hero's spaceship is driven by "repellatrons." While there is no exhaust, these don't violate the Conservation of Momentum, because they work by pushing remotely against the Earth.
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